Sleep health work with primary care nurses

15 August 2023
By Alex Sweetman

The Commonwealth grant has turned its attention toward identifying and promoting sleep health education resources to primary care nurses. Nurses are the largest registered workforce in Australia and New Zealand, and are well placed to be at the forefront of sleep healthcare and sleep disorder management (Buchan et al., 2023).

I recently presented on the importance of sleep health at the Festival of Nursing, the annual conference of the Australian Primary Health Care Nurse Associations (APNA). This included an overview of sleep health and sleep disorders, relationships with mental and physical health, and a showcase of the excellent work of ASA members and committees to research and support sleep healthcare delivery by primary care nurses.

A campaign has been launched with APNA, to provide scholarships for 6 APNA nurses to attend Sleep DownUnder  in Adelaide this November. The campaign is being promoted through APNA newsletters, podcasts and articles. We look forward to welcoming the successful applicants at Sleep Down Under, and introducing them to the exciting world of sleep medicine.

An upcoming project with the ASA Nurse Education Subcommittee and nurse members of the ASA aims to survey the sleep health education needs of a diverse range of primary care nurses across different settings, specialties, and career-stages. This survey aims to identify the sleep education needs of different groups, to guide the development and promotion of evidence-based sleep health resources to primary care nurses. If you are interested in getting involved in this work, please contact me at [email protected].